“This will add another 2m tonnes of capacity to the already saturated cape and VLOC market, and follows on the heels of recent reports regarding COSCO’s new order for a large number of 400,000-dwt Valemax bulkers from Chinese yards,” Compass Maritime commented.

“The only saving grace for the cape market has been the record pace of cape bulker recycling. As of this date in 2014, 14 capesize vessels were recycled; so far in 2015 we are up to 72 ships, and that may be a light number as the ships sold to Chinese breakers under their subsidy system, which has now been extended and will expire in 2017, sometimes go unreported.”